The Internet and its ever-increasing use, by a rapidly growing number of users continues to test the limits of switching equipment. Data networks that comprise the Internet are required to carry greater amounts of data, faster and faster. As a result, the data switches from which the networks are assembled are becoming increasingly complex and expensive.
Internet protocol (IP) data networks now routinely carry data at rates that are well over 1 gigabit per second. Switching equipment that is fast enough to handle such data rates, needs to be able to decode, among other things, address information embedded within an IP data packet and then, route packets to the appropriate destination. In managing the growth of data networks that carry high-speed data, a switching system architecture that is able to switch high-speed data at relatively low cost would provide a significant advantage to network service providers, in part, by providing them with the equipment to maintain service levels albeit at a relatively low cost.
The cross-bar switch is a well-known data switch. A cross bar switch is a switching system with some number of inputs and a comparable number of outputs. A connection between an input port and one of the output ports is established using switching techniques that functionally couple one of the inputs to one of the outputs much like a relay matrix.
Cross bar switching system technology is well known and such switching systems are relatively inexpensive to manufacture. A method and apparatus by which several of such systems could be operated in parallel to provide enhanced switching speeds would be an improvement over the prior art.